Please help - Very irregular waking times what am I doing wrong???

[becksmummy]

Hi

My DD is 14 weeks and wakes every night but there is no pattern to the wakings and the amount of times she wakes!

Some nights she will wake every 3 hours, so has a dreamfeed about 10.30pm then will wake at 1.30/4.30/7am. Others will be every 2 hours so 2/4/6am and will the be awake and wont go back down! then other times she will only wake once around 4am but then she wakes following that around 5.30am and again is very hard to settle as she is wide awake!!

I know if waking times follow a pattern its supposed to be habit and if different times its hunger but its hard to believe that she is hungry all these times!!!

I feel like I must be doing something wrong but her days are always quite similar and she has a bath and bedtime rountine at 7pm.

any suggestions, please help a very tired mommy!!!!!

I don't think she's hungry, more just battling to self-soothe herself back to sleep if she does wake. What do you do when she does wake up?

When she wakes I have tried shushing her, patting her and giving her dummy but very rarely will she go back to sleep without being fed.

If it is a case of her not being able to get herself back to sleep can you offer any suggestions to try?

Any help would be very much appreciated!

Hi,

My DS is 8 weeks and I'm getting the same problem, despite him having a good feed around 11pm. I also do a bath and bed routine at 7pm. I used to feed him at the first awakening eg 2.30 but now have ended up giving him a dummy first to see if it is hunger, and usually it isn't until about 4 ish. I think it's when they come into their light sleep, and you're supposed to let them settle themselves, I think I've made a rod for my own back by using the dummy though!

I know this isn't much help, just that I can empathise with you!
Although I didn't feed him between 11 and 4.30 last night, I'm exhausted from getting up every hour in between to settle him!

Perhaps we need to see how much sleep they're getting during the day? apparently should be not much more than 3 -4 hours?

If anybody has any suggestions on the constant wakings, I'd also be glad of them!

good luck

Hi becksmummy,

You are not doing anything wrong at all, your daughter will start to settle.

I found the best thing with my ds was just to feed him when he woke, and just put him straight back down. I tried hushing, giving water etc but all it seemed to do was wake me up and he only went back to sleep when I fed him. Does she sleep much during the day? She might be teething. Just do whatever allows you the most sleep.

I found pulling forward the last feed to 6.30(before bath) and keeping ds awake for 3 hours before bed helped, this meant when I did the dreamfeed at 11pm he was hungry and took more, then only woke up once in the night and eventually slept right through.

Don't be afraid to try something new. We always think its something we are doing and it isn't.

Could your dp do the dreamfeed at 10.30 so you could go to bed earlier? Have a hot bath, a glass of wine (help baby sleep too! - just a small one). XXX

I have tried giving water and other soltions but its only feeding that seems to settle her perhaps I need to keep offering water/dummy etc and eventually it might work?

I have thought about dropping the dreamfeed but didnt want her to wake up even more if she hadnt had that late feed? Has anyone else tried this with any success??

my ds is similiar, 12 wks now. very irratic overnite.on the odd occassin he'll sleep til 5 but more often he'll wake 2/3, not cryng but moaning and arching his back. I try to sooth him (not lift him) with dummy and stroking his forehead and rubbing his tummy. sometimes he'll go back to sleep othertimes he won't and i have to feed him or bring him into bed with me (which works a treat unfortunetly).last nite we lengtened dream feed, had him up for an hr and he slept til 5. i wouldn't drop dreamfeed.

Good to know i'm not the only one Billyog, so do you wake your LO rather than feed while still asleep for the dreamfeed?